Your guide to doing the Festival de Cannes right

The Festival de Cannes 2016 ended a few days ago and, just like every year, celebrities proudly posed in their designers’ outfits on the red carpet. Brands, just as they do every year, happily shared photos of celebrities wearing their latest designs across their social media channels.

Some brands, however, decided to shake things up. Surprisingly, the two brands I have in mind went for a similar message: a guide to experiencing the Festival de Cannes the best way.

Dolce & Gabbana took advantage of the famous movie festival to launch a social media campaign centered on the event. The brand share pictures (of models only) at Cannes, doing things celebs do at Cannes, and wearing the brand’s designs. The twist of the campaign was in the posts’ descriptions.

Too bad it didn’t the brand long to go back to sharing photos of celebs wearing its creations again, slightly ruining the efforts of the campaign to position the brand as a self-deprecating one.

#whathappensinCannes (stays in Cannes!) with Elie Saab

Elie Saab, on the other hand, mixed celebrities photocalls with fun and self-deprecating content, ranging from gifs of a suitcase being filled, to pictures featuring a key piece form the brand’s collection and a second degree caption.

For example, the brand shared a gif of woman scrolling through her Instagram feed, with the caption “Half way through, time for a recap”.

Mixing fun, on-point insights of young women with high fashion content, the brand successfully twisted the traditional Cannes communication. All contents of the campaign are gathered on the brand’s site.